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Saturday, 26 July 2014

gypsy wife {reflective edition}

The style of quilts I make varies quite alot but I do find I am drawn more often to ones with lots of colour! And this scrappy Gypsy Wife sure has that! It's been a slow burning project, which is ok -I can do slow! But what I have found hard is the construction stage, the putting-it-all-together part! Is it just me or are others struggling too?

I've had little blocks & little 1 1/2 " strips of fabric everywhere! At first it was all in one place, up on my design wall in my sewing room. But then this WiP got too big... it's now spread out all over the spare bed, AND all over the floor in the spare bedroom.... and it's been this way for a couple of weeks now. So very, very messy! It's like having a teenage daughter back at home, leaving everything in messy piles on the floor, and it feels like history repeating itself, you know, like you have to pick you battles! So I've simply resorted to old habits and just closed the door!

On reflection, I have relearned a few things... so all is still good!
A consistant scant 1/4" seam is certainly the key here. And when piecing all the strips together, I found, after the first few attempts!, that sewing successive seams in alternating directions helped decrease the bowing (curving into an arc) look. Also, while using alot of fabrics certainly gives that real scrappy feel to the quilt, I personally need to have some sort of balance thingy happening too - so I began limiting my little block borders to 4 colours (reds/blue/goldish/grey), and I used low volume fabrics & assorted greys as my backgrounds.

I have enjoyed the "process" and, while the challenge of construction has certainly called for some patience, it is exciting seeing it all come together! But now, I must admit, I'm only focusing on the end result!

3 comments:

So far I have only made the bigger blocks that are made as a single unit. I am about to embark on some of the filler blocks as a distraction before finishing the bigger blocks. I like your idea of laying it up on the design wall including the strips.

I chose a selection of fabric right at the outset. Probably 20 different fabrics. I also cut my strips at the beginning too so that I would not run out of fabric for them! I actually cut 2 or 3 strips per fabric (at WOF) and set them to one side. I have not actually counted how many I really need but am sure I will have enough.

As I embark on making the filler blocks I am apprehensive about colour balance and making the quilt pleasing visually. I always overthink things, so this angst is nothing new!! Reading your post I can see that there is a lot of merit in pinning the blocks and strips on the design wall right now, so that I can select good colour combos for the filler blocks.

Your quilt looks great! I am envious of your progress and I am praying for very heavy snow in Christchurch that will prevent me from leaving home for a few days so that I can get on with mine!

Thanx for all the +ves! It sounds like you started out a bit more organised than I did! I can't stop now & just shove it away in the wardrobe, I'd never get back to it otherwise! I'm on the last little bit and it really is excitingly close to finishing now! L

Hi I'm Linda. Here's a little "show & tell" of my quilty adventures. I am a mother of two grown up children & granny to three now! I've been making quilts on & off for a few years, I particularly enjoy making colourful scrappy quilts! Comments always welcome .........Oh, and I'm happy to share my pics but please credit them with a link back to this blog, thanx!